A Surprising New Pokémon Game Is Free To Play From Your Smartphone

There are already plenty of ways to catch Pokémon. You can play the original game series or spin-offs like Pokémon Go. Dust off your old Pokémon cards, or try the digital equivalent in Pokémon TCG Pocket. Now, Google is adding one more way to capture your favorite digital critters right from your phone.

Starting April 4, Google is adding a new Pokémon game to search on mobile devices. According to the company, the new game is launching after searches for “Pokémon card” reached an all-time high this February.

“Pokémon is such an iconic franchise and we are definitely big fans here at Google,” Michelle Chou, entertainment product manager at Google, tells Inverse. “We wanted to create an experience for our users that matches the playfulness of Pokémon while bringing surprise and delight to Pokémon fans organically looking up characters on search.”

Playing the game is simple. Any time you search for one of the original 151 Pokémon on Google using your phone, a Pokéball will appear near the top of the search results. Clicking it will let you catch the Pokémon and add it to your Pokédex. You’ll earn Master Balls at milestones reached by catching certain numbers of Pokémon, which you can use to catch Legendary and Mythical monsters. As long as you’re logged in to your Google account, progress will be saved between sessions.

If you don’t know all 151 original Pokémon off the top of your dome, you could always just pull up a big list of all their names and catch them up by one, but there’s actually a much more fun way to play Google’s new game. Whenever you catch a Pokémon, you’ll also be able to see how many are left to capture before you have all 151. You can then click through to a hint about one of the Pokémon you’re missing. In Google’s example, you’re shown an outline of Nidoking in the style of the “Who’s That Pokémon?” segment from the original anime, along with the hint “Evolves from Nidorino.” While just searching for different Pokémon and clicking a Pokéball isn’t much of a game on its own, challenging yourself to remember as many as you can on your own and filling in the blanks with the provided hints should make it much more interesting.

Along with its new game, Google also shared a list of the top 50 most searched-for Pokémon from the original 151. Unsurprisingly, Pikachu takes the top spot for searches over the past year and in the all-time rankings. Eevee comes in second for all-time searches (on account of being the best Pokémon) with Charizard at number three, though their positions are flipped just counting searches in the past year. One more interesting insight for fans of first-generation Pokémon is the order of the original starters. Charmander is the first to show up on the all-time search list at number nine, followed directly by Squirtle at number ten. Bulbasaur, who deserves better, lags a little behind, showing up at number 14.

This isn’t the first time Google has dabbled in delivering free games to people using search. Last year, it launched a trio of Halloween games from the Google Doodle team, starring Momo, a character based on the artist’s actual cat. One of its most ambitious offerings came earlier in 2024, when Google teamed up with A Highland Song developer Inkle to create The Forever Labyrinth. This text adventure that sends players on a tour of art history lives on in Google’s Experiments page, unlike the company’s other limited time Doodle games.

Google’s Pokémon catching game isn’t the most involved of these projects, but the fact that it’s directly integrated into search results does make for an interesting twist. Given that Pokémon Legends Z-A still doesn’t have a solid release date — and fans hoping to play it on the Switch 2 might have trouble even affording the new console — a free, low-key Pokémon game seems even more inviting right now.